Imus Still Hosting MSNBC Fundraiser

By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK – Even as advertisers defected and politicians piled on, it was an internal mutiny within NBC News about Don Imus’ racial slur that was key to pulling the plug on his MSNBC simulcast.

About 30 angry NBC News employees, many of them black, met with news division president Steve Capus less than 24 hours before Capus decided that a two-week suspension of Imus’ morning telecast wasn’t enough.

They said they’d had it with Imus’ brand of coarse ethnic humor, capped with last week’s reference to the Rutgers female basketball players as “nappy-headed hos.”

“Within this organization, this had touched a nerve,” Capus said Wednesday. “The comment that came through to us, time and time again, was ‘when is enough going to be enough?’ This was the only action we could take.”

Despite being banished from the NBC family, MSNBC faces the embarrassing problem today of having the just-fired host broadcast his annual radio charity fundraiser from its studios in New Jersey. The 18th annual Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990, ends Friday.

Imus’ ultimate fate depends on the CBS Corp., which owns both the radio station WFAN-AM that is the host’s broadcast home, and the syndicator Westwood One, which distributes “Imus in the Morning” to stations across the country.

CBS Radio, which has also suspended Imus for two weeks without pay, said it would “continue to speak with all concerned parties and monitor the situation closely.”

A growing list of sponsors – including American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. – had said they were pulling ads from Imus’ show indefinitely.

Imus’ program is worth a total of about $15 million in annual revenue to CBS Corp., through advertising on WFAN and syndication fees received from MSNBC and Westwood One. It wasn’t clear how much of that total came from MSNBC.

Imus has apologized repeatedly for his comments. He said Tuesday he hadn’t been thinking when making a joke that went “way too far.” He also said that those who called for his firing without knowing him, his philanthropic work or what his show was about would be making an “ill-informed” choice.

Imus’ program has been the only thing MSNBC has aired on weekday mornings for the 11 years of the network’s existence.

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